A U.N. climate report released on Sunday concludes that there may still be time to limit global warming to an increase of two degrees Celsius or less, which could help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change. But doing so will depend on making extraordinary changes to energy infrastructure at a much faster pace than is happening now, and may require the use of controversial and unproven technologies for pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Clean coal might work in China, but here’s why we won’t see much of it here

The EPA’s bait-and-switch on coal continued this week in Washington. During a Senate hearing on the EPA’s budget for 2015, administrator Gina McCarthy tried her best to argue that all the agency is really trying to do is give coal a path forward to continue to be part of the nation’s energy portfolio.

The “bait” the EPA tosses out is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the technology that removes carbon dioxide produced during the burning of coal and other fossil fuels. The EPA says it has a responsibility under the Clean Air Act to reduce CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases because they affect the climate.

Researchers have for the first time isolated the fragile and elusive cyanoformate ion, and in doing so have not only opened up new avenues in the search for energetically efficient ways to capture carbon dioxide, but may have also solved a mystery that has baffled plant biochemists for decades.